Kahnawake, the Mohawk community of 8,000 on Montreal's South Shore, could see its population double as a result of a proposed federal law that aims to end discrimination against aboriginal women.

If passed, Bill C-3 would amend Canada's Indian Act and extend Indian status to the grandchildren of First Nations women who married non-First Nations men.

Currently, only the grandchildren of First Nations men who marry non-First Nations women are granted Indian status and such accompanying rights as tax exemptions and money for education.

The proposed law is a legislative response to a 2009 British Columbia Court of Appeal ruling known as the McIvor decision. That decision gave Ottawa one year to amend parts of the Indian Act that violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"It's all projections, but we could see an influx - a minimum of 6,000 people up to 12,000 people," Mike Bush, a chief on the Kahnawake band council, said yesterday.

"We are looking at a huge influx of quote, unquote status Indians," Bush said.

"Where are we going to put them? That's the potential fallout of the McIvor decision."

In 1985, Sharon McIvor, a member of British Columbia's Lower Nicola First Nation who married a non-aboriginal man, launched a legal battle to have her children registered as status Indians.

The proposed Indian Act amendments stemming from her court case bring an end to what has become known as the so-called "second generation cut-off."

The federal Indian and Northern Affairs Department estimates that 45,000 men and women across Canada will be eligible for Indian status on various reserves to which they have ancestral ties, but others peg the numbers much higher.

There are currently 800,000 people across Canada recognized as full-status Indians.

In Kahnawake, the potential arrival of new community members anxious to take advantage of benefits afforded by Indian status comes at a time when tensions between the various factions in the community are already heightened. The band council's recent issuing of eviction notices to non-aboriginals is now seen by many people in the community as a pre-emptive action taken with inside knowledge that a new federal law was imminent.

The eviction notices were first issued at the beginning of February to about 25 non-aboriginal people involved in relationships with community members. They were given 10 days to leave or else their names would be posted in the community.

The procedure was suspended when the band council decided to hold public hearings on its membership law instead.

Those hearings were scheduled to start next month, but have now been pushed back to May or June.

Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl has said he has no idea how much it will cost to end gender discrimination in the Indian Act, and has announced no new funding.

"We've been warning people about the McIvor decision" and what it could mean for Kahnawake, said Joe Delaronde, a Mohawk band council spokesperson.

"The pot of money will stay the same, but there will be more demands on it," Delaronde said. "There will be shortfalls."

Under federal law, aboriginal communities receive funding based on Ottawa's band-member registries for education, health care and other services.

Kahnawake's existing social infrastructure - several schools, a hospital, a local police force and a wide range of community services - is calibrated to meet the needs of a population that fluctuates between 8,000 and 9,000.

If large numbers of people with Mohawk ancestry make moves to start new lives in Kahnawake, it remains to be seen how the federal government and Kahnawake membership lists will be managed and whether differences between the two lists would create new tensions in the community.

Kahnawake keeps its own membership lists, which means it can decide who is accepted as a community member, a designation that bestows additional entitlements to Mohawks in the community.

Previous Quebec court decisions have upheld Kahnawake's right to maintain its own membership list.

Building lots, each one-quarter of an acre, on the 13,000-acre reservation are one of the richer entitlements that come with Kahnawake membership.

Unlike Kanesatake, the Mohawk reserve near Oka, Kahnawake still has vacant land, although "not limitless."

As for land allotments, Bush said, if someone who becomes eligible to join the federal Kahanawake list as a result of Bill C-3 also meets the criteria of Kahnawake's own membership list, they would "go to the end of the line."

Bill C-3 is currently awaiting a second reading in Parliament.

MEMBERSHIP LAW SPELLS OUT RIGHTS

A 1984 Kahnawake law entitles members of the Mohawk community to a wide range of rights and privileges. Among them: the right to vote for band council officials, the right to hold elected office, housing assistance, the right to own and operate a business in the territory, residency and land ownership in the territory and the right to be buried in the territory.

The law, to be reviewed during public hearings, has created tension in the community, most recently for the way it decides who receives membership status. Among other things, residents must be the offspring of two Kahnawake members and have at least four Mohawk great-grandparents.